Researchers have discovered a 160 million-year-old fossil of a fast-running, agile omnivore.

The fossil, found in northeastern China, is the earliest known skeletal fossil of a
multituberculate and offers new insight into this mammal group’s incredible success.
Multituberculates thrived alongside dinosaurs for more than 100 million years and then outlived
them for 30 million years before becoming extinct, making way for rodents.

The newly described species,
Rugosodon eurasiaticus, had highly ornamented teeth, with many wrinkles and creases. This
is a sign that multituberculates started out as omnivores, researchers said.

Over time, many multituberculates evolved to become herbivores, an adaptation that helped them
thrive. The researchers also discovered that the animal had flexible anklebones, suggesting that it
was a fast runner.

Rugosodon is described in the current issue of the journal
Science.

Software detects phony photographs

Using algorithms designed to sniff out suspicious shadows, computer scientists from Dartmouth
and the University of California, Berkeley, say they have developed software that can reliably
detect fake or altered photos.

Detecting manipulated photos is a growing priority for lawyers, journalists and people involved
in law enforcement and national security.

The software uses geometric formulas to detect and analyze shadows that are invisible to the
naked eye, then lines them up with a potential light source. If it cannot do so, it deems the image
implausible.

The study is published in the September issue of
ACM Transactions on Graphics.

To demonstrate the software, the researchers ran an analysis of a picture of the 1969 moon
landing. They determined that the image was not a fake.